Rehearsal

The Nave family’s nomadic lifestyle has offered me the privileged of sitting under a number of remarkable preachers, teachers and mentors. Of all the sermons I’ve heard on the cross and Christ’s resurrection, none have stirred my spirit more then a series Jon Weece taught nearly five summers ago. He prompted me to take a closer look at Feasts of the Hebrew nation. They are drenched in love and promises.

I needed to be reminded of these riches this week. I lamented to a friend this afternoon that I am weary of lent. There is heaviness around campus, particularly in chapel, that I can no longer endure. I’m ready for Easter and my heart can’t wait till Sunday. If you too are feeling weighty, I pray the following snippet will help lop off the gloom. Celebrate my friends. The tomb has been empty for years.

The Feasts functioned in the same way our holidays do. They were used to eat, remember and anticipate something bigger to come. Their word for feast is best translated as a “rehearsal.” Leviticus 23 sets the foundation for explaining some of the larger “rehearsals” practiced by the Israelites. The Feast of Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits were packaged together.

-Passover was to be celebrated on the 14th day of the 7th month (Nisan.) Four pictures can be drawn out of this the first Passover (Exodus 12). First, God was attempting to set His people free from slavery and bondage. Second, God was willing to kill all of the first-born sons of Egypt to accomplish this redemptive plan. Third, God would cover and mark His people with the blood of a lamb to protect them. And fourth, all of this would happen in the darkness of the night as the death angle passed over. By the time Jesus shows up on the scene, Passover had had 1,400 years to develop into a beautiful and significant feast. Josephesus, a Jewish historian, tells us that 250,000 – 400,000 lambs, who had been born and raised in Bethlehem, were sacrificed on the alter during this festival. The smell of burning animals never left the nostrils of the Hebrew people. It was a constant sensory reminder of the smell and stench of death and sin. Visually there was so much blood coming out of the lambs that is was literally ankle deep in the temple courtyards and flowed down into the city streets. There is nothing to be romanticized about the Feast of Passover. One could say that the overarching theme of this Feast is the people asking God for deliverance from death.

- Unleavened Bread was scheduled on the Jewish calendar to take place on the 15th of Nisan. This feast was set up as a way of asking God for bread from the earth. As farmers, the Hebrew people linked bread with life. So what are they really asking is for God to bring life out of the earth.

- The Feast of First Fruits was to be celebrated the next Sunday following the Feast of Unleavened Bread. During this time people would bring the entire yielding of their first harvest to God. They offered it to Him as a sign that they trusted Him to meet their every need. Come hail storm, locus or drought. As Jehovah-jireh, they trusted Him to provide. The theme for this feast would be summarized as “God, keep us alive.”

In the final week of Jesus’ life, the 14th fell on a Friday. Recall that the Hebrew nation measured time by the moon, not the sun. Their days’ ran from sunset to sunset. So for all intensive purposes, Passover began on what we would call Thursday night at 6:00. This means that Friday night beginning at 6:00, marked the beginning of The Feast of Unleavened Bread. The very next Sunday, for which the Feast of First Fruits would have been celebrated, happened to be the very next day. As mentioned previously, the Hebrew nation functioned on a lunar calendar, and therefore lost 11 days a year – meaning that every 4 years they would have a leap month. All this is to say that having these three Feasts lined up back-to-back would only happen once in a lifetime.

So on Friday the 14th, the entire Hebrew nation is gathering together to celebrate Passover. While sacrificing lambs they are asking God to deliver them from death. Meanwhile, as the skies begin to turn dark, Jesus, the first born of all creation, the Bread of Life, the lamb who was born in Bethlehem, is on a cross. Unbeknownst to them, God is listening and responding to their prayers.

The next day, Saturday, is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The entire Hebrew nation is asking for God to bring life out of the earth. Meanwhile, Jesus is being put into the ground. If you’ll recall, all the gospel writers are clear in telling us that there was a rush to get Him in the ground by sundown. Why? May I suggest that God wanted His Son in the ground by sunset because sunset marked the beginning of a new day, Saturday, and the beginning of a new feast? Don’t make the mistake of saying that Jesus was buried that day. No friend, Jesus was planted that day. Do you remember what Jesus said in His ministry? “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit (John 12).” The entire Hebrew nation is asking for God to bring life out of the earth and God is planting the bread of life into the ground.

Sunday marks the Feast of First Fruits. What day does Jesus walk out of the grave? Sunday. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:20, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

I case I lost you in any of that, here is the Clift Note Version: Friday, as the people are praying “God deliver us from death,” Jesus is dying. On Saturday, as Jesus is being planted in the ground on Unleavened Bread, the people are praying, “God bring life out of the earth.” And on Sunday the people are praying, “God keep us alive,” and Jesus is walking out of His tomb.

The God we serve renders me speechless.